Timeline: CSU football and stadium milestones

Oct. 1, 2012

Jan. 7, 1893: First intercollegiate football game played by students at the State Agricultural College. The game was played against Longmont Academy, which beat the Fort Collins students 12-8.

1901: Alumnus Charles Durkee donates $650 to build a fence encircling a playing field near College Avenue, upon which football games were played. Spectators lined the railroad tracks to watch games for free.

1907: Durkee Field acquires a grandstand seating about 200 spectators.

1911: Harry W. Hughes arrives on campus as physical director. The football team he coaches loses every single game that year.

January 1912: a student-faculty group persuades the governing board to build a new football field along College Avenue.

Fall 1912: The football team, playing on the new Colorado Field, goes 3-and-5 on the season, including beating the University of Colorado. Colorado Field is the first sodded football field in the Rocky Mountain region.

Oct. 3, 1914: Arguing that football would help attract new students and draw alumni attention, Colorado Agricultural College plays its first Homecoming game.

1966: Boosters led by a local car dealer commit the university’s governing board to building a new stadium, hoping that improved ticket sales, higher student fees and revenues from a television deal would make the project viable.

September 1966: Design and preparation begins for new stadium west of CSU’s main campus. President Harry Morgan notes that Colorado Field’s 13,000 seats were filled only three times in his 12 years as president. Morgan opposed building a stadium on campus, preferring to save that space for academic buildings.

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May 8, 1967: Ground broken on what will become Hughes Stadium.

Sept. 28, 1968: First game played at Hughes Stadium. CSU is admitted to the Western Athletic Conference.

Dec. 1, 2011: CSU President Tony Frank publishes a white paper on college athletics that raises the possibility of an on-campus stadium: “And beyond recruiting, think of the impact that a privately funded football stadium on our campus would have on attracting people to our wonderful campus, engaging students, reconnecting alumni, and boosting the local economy,” he wrote.

February 2012: CSU launches a series of study groups and advisory panels to explore the possibility of an on-campus stadium. Frank says the facility must be privately funded.

May 2012: Consultants advising CSU recommend building the facility near Lake Street and the Plant Environmental Research Center, with a price tag of about $246 million.

Aug. 8, 2012: CSU’s Stadium Advisory Committee formally recommends that the university could build and finance a new on-campus stadium. Frank takes the recommendation under advisement.

Oct. 1, 2012: Frank announces that he thinks CSU should pursue building an on-campus stadium.